


In Case of Emergency

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, mild head wound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She gets pulled out of bed for the sixth night in the row to pick Tony up from some club, and even though he's her boss, Pepper finds herself snapping at him.  "Why do they keep calling me?"Tony stares at her, then mumbles something she can barely make out.   "I have you as my emergency contact."There are ways to respond to that, she knows, but Pepper can't think of one.





	In Case of Emergency

Pepper knows that she sort of brings these late night phone calls on herself, but when she gets dragged out of bed for the sixth night in the row to pick Tony up from his nightly wanderings ( _this time because he had taken a beer bottle to the face_ ) she can't help but decide that enough is enough.

She can't stay mad at him.  Mostly because she knows that if she really wanted it to stop she could just send Happy, but also because when he climbs into her car after his drunken escapades, he always looks so sad and lost that whatever resolve she had managed to gather fizzles out, like one of those faulty sparklers you would pull out of the box when you were little.  

"Tony."  Pepper reached over the back of the seat to get to him.  She knew she was backing up traffic and the owner of the club was impatient, but she didn't care, because he was bleeding more than his text had alluded to.  "What happened?"

"He was being rude to some girl."  Tony doesn't bother to fill in who the "he" was.  Probably a celebrity, or a CEO that makes five times the amount Pepper does, or someone who used to be famous and is bitter about the fact that his career crashed and burned.  It doesn't really matter.  "Thought I should step in."

Pepper sighs.  She had thought, based on the reports that her google searches had turned up, that Tony would be one of those guys that blew through women just because he doesn't care about them, and who would laugh about what they had done together as soon as they had left.  The kind that promised to call and never would.  Really, though, he's unfailingly polite, and from what she's gathered, never does anything that the other person wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with.   He holds the door, and has Happy take them home safely, and when he promises to call them he always does, even if its not to tell them what they want to hear.

In other words, he's a gentleman.

"With your face?"

"It didn't start that way."   He was soaking up the blood with his tie.  "I was just so much smaller than him."

It was such a ridiculous and obvious thing to say that Pepper burst out laughing, now picturing Tony facing down some 6'5'' body builder, and then Tony was laughing, too, and suddenly she didn't have it in her to be angry anymore, if she ever was.

 

 

 

She helps him into the house and lets him use her for balance as he hops up on the counter ( _I've decided I like being tall_ ), patiently waiting for her to gather up everything she needed to clean up the cut.

"It's really bad."  She had already gone through three wash cloths, and the tie was in the trash, and it was still bleeding.  "Should we call a doctor?"

That's how important Tony was.  You didn't go to the doctor when you were Tony Stark.  The doctor came to you.

"Head wounds always bleed,"  He muttered.  "Jarvis?"

"Stitches necessary, sir."  The voice had stopped freaking her out by now.  Now, she looks at him as some omnipotent father figure, which is probably what Tony intended.  "I would advise a doctor.  Shall I call one?"

Pepper's suddenly glad that she had come in, because without her Tony would have either went to bed or tried to do the stitches himself, neither of which was a good idea.  "Yes."  She answered, wadding up the closest piece of cloth she could find, which happened to be Tony's shirt.  "Quickly, please."

 

 

 

The doctor got there twenty minutes later, apparently used to the house calls at Tony's house.  This one was apparently mild, and he stitched up Tony right there on the kitchen counter with Pepper watching from between her fingers.

"You're going to be fine."  The doctor tells him, snapping off his gloves and throwing them in the trash, which was full of bloodied cloth and medical swabs.  "Might twinge a bit.  Just try and remember to call me if it gets infected this time, okay?"

Pepper doesn't ask about the last time.  She's pretty sure it involved a piercing, which she only knew about because of Rhodey.

"You stay with him tonight, yeah?"  The doctor turned to her, and Pepper wanted to tell him no, it wasn't like that, because he obviously assumed that she was one of Tony's girls.  "Keep an eye on that concussion."

Pepper follows him out, heels tapping on the floor.  "And how do I know if the concussion is bad?"

She knows a lot about computers and companies and fashion and science, but she knows very little about first aid.  Looking at where she works, it's a very large gap in her education.  

"You'll know."  The doctor goes to leave, and Pepper grabs the door with her hand, blocking his way.  He makes a little tssking sound, like he wasn't used to Tony's girls being so noncompliant.  "He vomits.  He passes out.  That sort of thing."

"And I call you?"

"No, you call ambulance."  He smiles, then pats her on the cheek.  she can't tell if it was supposed to be condescending or not.  "He'll need the hospital."

He goes for the door again, and this time she lets him pass, wishing she had told Tony to stop calling her for his late night pick ups.

 

 

Pepper's still in her work clothes, which are now stained in blood, so she raids Tony's closet for a band shirt that's been through the wash too many times and too-short pajama pants.  When she's done, she heads back to the living room and curled up in the chair directly across from Tony, where she would notice if he vomits or passes out, or any other worrisome sign.

"You know you don't have to do that."  Tony didn't even open his eyes.  She wonders if Jarvis can speak to him through some sort of mic she can't see ( _it wouldn't surprise her if Tony had a chip embedded in his head_ ) or if he was just that in tune with her actions.  "Jarvis can watch over me."

"The doctor told me to."  She doesn't feed him a line about it being her job this time.  This time, she's just worried.  "It'll make me feel better if I can see that you're okay."

He doesn't argue, just lets her stay, but she can tell that neither of them will be going to sleep for a long time.  

"You're staring at me."

It's dark.  He's got no idea if she's actually watching.  "It's observing."

"It's creepy."

"It's precautionary."  He doesn't shoot back a response, so Pepper leans back and pulls the blanket around her shoulders, swallowing her. It's easy to be around him in the darkness, where she can't see his face and he can't watch for her reaction.  Maybe that's why she brings it up.  "Tony, why do they keep calling me?  Happy said that you used to call him."

He doesn't answer for a long time, long enough that she actually thinks he's gone to sleep.  "You're my emergency contact."

There are ways to respond with that, she's sure.  Pepper's also sure she didn't know them.  "Why?"  

"What do you mean, why?"   Tony's defensive.   Pepper hates it when he gets defensive, because he's a lot better at it than her.

"I mean, why didn't you pick somebody else?"  

She should have known that would be the wrong thing to say.  That he would have taken it as her saying that she didn't want to be that person for him, rather than her wondering why he would think she was important enough to him to warrant that kind of responsibility.  Pepper knew that she cared for him, but until now, she never once thought that she had become just as important to Tony as he was to her.

"Who else would I have picked, Pepper?"  Tony's voice was bitter.  "My mom and dad?  They're dead.  Stane?  Not the type to come hold my hand in the hospital.  Happy?  He wouldn't know what to do.  And Rhodey?  He's off protecting the country, he doesn't have time to worry about me.  And there must be someone else, right, anyone other than you who can do this?"  Tony's voice was definitely bitter, each syllable dripping with derision.  "Oh, wait, there isn't.  There is literally only you.  I can count the people who care about me on one hand, and two of them are dead."

He's such an angry man.  Angry, and hurting, and bitter, and still throwing salt in wounds that should have closed long ago.

"That's not what I meant, Tony."  It wasn't.  She didn't mind being woken up to go pick him up from the hospital, she just didn't like getting beer spilled on her shoes three times a week.  "I'm fine with being your emergency contact."

"Maybe you should go."  He turns so his back is to her.  "Jarvis can keep an eye on me."

"Don't be stupid."  Has someone called him stupid before?  She doesn't think so.  "If he had to get you to the hospital, the doctors would just call me, anyways."

She thinks he laughs, but she isn't sure.

 

 

The next day, she leaves without saying good bye.  Tony would read into that, but she doesn't worry about it, because she shows up two hours later with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a suit case rolling at her heels.

He holds the door open for her, and catches the duffel bag when she throws it to him.  (Throwing doesn't not count as being handed things. Loopholes.)  "What is this?"

"This is me."  She marched through the halls and he followed, sputtering.  "Moving in."

"Moving in?"  He smiled in the way he does when a reporter asks him a question he doesn't know how to answer.  For once, she had thrown him off his game.  "I'm not sure that we're in that stage of our relationship, Pepper."

Pepper ignores him, just throws open the door to the guest room farthest from Tony's own and hauls the suitcase up on the bed.  "I'm just getting a room ready.  I'm done with going home on the nights I pick you up just to come back five hours.  This way at least one of us will get some sleep." 

It's a very nice room.  And from the feel of it, the bed was much comfier than the one she had at home.   This bathroom had a spa bathtub, too.  

"I charged some things to your card, by the way."  She started to unpack, and Tony kept staring at her like he didn't understand any of it.  "Toiletries that I had to double up on, this suit case, other things.  All reasonable.  You can take it from my pay if you want."

"No."  He spun in a circle to watch her.  "But why are you doing this?  I thought you didn't want to deal with me anymore?"

She rolls her eyes.  Of course that what's he heard from that conversation last night.  "That's not what I said.  If you would have asked, I don't like to pick you up from bars because it's mildly frightening to walk through crowds like that on my own, but I'm perfectly fine being the one they call when you need a ride home from the hospital, Tony."

"It's not your job."  Which, okay, sure, now he plays that card.  "You shouldn't have to deal with it."

"It stopped being about the job a while ago, Tony."  She snaps the words out without thinking about how they would sound, and then decides that she doesn't care.  He can take whatever he wants from that.  "I'm here for whatever you need."

He stares at her.  Tony never knows what to say in the face of people being nice.  "I'll try to stop going out so much."

"You won't."

"I won't."  He smiles.  "But I'll say thank you afterwards."

Pepper snorts out a laugh, wondering what she can say to make the tension leave the air, but there's nothing, so she just slips out of the room, squeezing his hand as she passes by.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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